The Dead Circle (25 page)

His father’s glaring gaze did not make him quit the piano. In fact, before he turned eleven, he was performing with the Detroit Youth Orchestra. He was remarkably technically proficient. In fact, he was almost technically perfect, never missing a note. He was like a machine.

 Chris liked the piano because—especially in a classical setting—it was a solitary instrument. When he performed in the youth orchestra, almost every other section was doubled, tripled or part of a sea of violins or army of trumpets. There was no chorus of keyboards. It was only him, by himself. He had complete autonomy over the eighty-eight keys, total control over the success or failure of the music played on them. It was only a matter of being good enough and working hard enough to hit each of the keys at exactly the right time in exactly the right combination with the exactly correct tempo, volume and articulation. Success was thrilling. He was the master of the black and white universe. Failure was obvious and humiliating.

Chris’ teachers had always been impressed with his precision. He picked up the music faster than anyone they had ever seen. He worked harder than any other student from the time he first touched the keys. But his first teacher, Martha Trotsman, who doubled as his third grade science teacher, always had a nagging feeling that something was off in his playing. She never mentioned it, perhaps because she was so excited to have a student that actually practiced, but she wondered if she was missing something in her teaching.

When Chris was twelve, he started taking lessons from a well-known teacher at the Interlochen summer music camp. It was he who was the first to diagnose the limitation that would keep Chris from being any more than a moderate success as a musician.

Professor Granden, a plump older man with kind eyes, sat Chris down in the faculty room after the Michigan Youth Piano Competition. Chris sat rigidly. He was attempting to look as adult as possible, trying to hide his disappointment and anxiety. He was already starting to sport the acne that would plague most of his teenage-hood, but he still looked very much like a boy.

“Chris, do you know why you came in second place?”

“No I don’t. I played everything right.”

Chris looked down at his feet. He felt small sitting on the overstuffed couch. He’d never been in a faculty room before and he felt out of place. He wondered if he’d done something wrong and was going to get yelled at. Instead, Professor Granden handed him a mug of hot chocolate and sat down in the chair next to him.

“Yes you did. Exactly right.”

“And Kyle messed up in the fourth movement. Why did he win?”

“Well that’s a bit complicated. Let me ask you another question. What do you feel when you play?”

“Feel? I guess I’m trying to concentrate. I’m trying to make sure I get my fingering right.”

“Is concentration a feeling?”

“Uh… well…” Chris wondered if this was some sort of a trap. He took a sip of his hot chocolate to buy time.

“It’s OK. This isn’t a quiz. When you play Mendelssohn, what do you feel? Happy? Sad? Excited?”

“I guess I feel a little nervous. I want to play it right.”

“And that is perfectly understandable. Commendable even. But your playing is missing your feelings, your emotions, your passion for the music. We could hear how much you wanted to play the right notes, but we couldn’t hear why you wanted to play the music. This is why you came in second.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, no. You haven’t done anything wrong. Chris, you play with your head and you play with your hands. And you’re brilliant at both. In that way, you’re more talented than anyone I’ve ever taught. But you need to learn how to play with your
heart
too.”

Now Chris really felt like he was being trapped. This had to be some sort of trick, he was confused and scared. “How am I supposed to do that? Play louder? Or faster? I play what the music says. What else do you want from me?”

“No, it’s not about that. It’s more intangible.”

Chris didn’t know what that meant, but he wasn’t about to let on and get tricked again. He just nodded.

Professor Granden could tell that Chris was lost and didn’t quite know how to help him. He sighed, took off his glasses and looked at him sadly. “Chris do you enjoy playing piano?”

“I don’t understand. What difference does that make? Is this a punishment?”

The older man was now getting flustered too. He had touched on something in Chris that was much bigger than piano and he didn’t know how to back-pedal. “No… Chris, calm down. Nobody is mad at you. I’m trying to help you get better-”

“Am I not good enough? Are you kicking me out!?”

“No! Of course I’m not.”

Chris was now red-faced and shouting. His ears had started to buzz with the feeling of betrayal. “I played it right! I did it perfect! Leave me alone!!”

He stormed out of the room before the tears began. He was desperate to get out of this horrible den that smelled like leather, cigars and old people. On his way out, he accidentally bumped into the end-table causing his mug of hot chocolate to topple off and crash to the floor. He did not stop, he could not stop, but he choked out a watery “Sorry!” as he half-walked, half-ran down the hallway.

Chris had no choice but to go back to his mother. She’d be waiting in the car. He would sit down in the back seat with his face beet-red and streaked with tears, but he already knew she would be blissfully unaware of his suffering. She checked the rear-view mirror carefully for traffic before she pulled out of her parking spot, but she did not see the look on Chris’ face.

“That was such a lovely recital hall Chrissy.”

Chris did not respond. He sat in silence, staring straight ahead, agonizing over the truly important question of the day;

‘How am I going to tell Dad that I lost?’

*

When Chris started high school, something remarkable happened. In his second day at Middlefield High, he got completely lost searching for his third period math room. He knew the class was on the ground floor, but somehow found himself in the deserted basement. He opened door after door and just found maintenance and storage rooms. He was about to give up and ask for help, something his father would have been furious about, when he opened a green door into the school’s boiler room. His heart skipped a beat. Tucked behind the large industrial boiler was an old upright piano. It was covered with dust and there was a stack of gym mats over half of the keys, but it seemed to call out to Chris.

‘Nobody knows I’m here. I’m a secret. Just for you…’

Forgetting all about math class, Chris closed the door behind him and started to uncover the keys, setting the mats to the side and brushing off as much of the dust as he could. The boiler behind him radiated heat and made regular loud clanging noises, but Chris was only aware of the piano. He looked over his shoulder double-checking that he was alone and pressed a random key. An out-of-tune ‘A flat’ warbled out. The piano was old and in rough shape and it hadn’t been that great a piano to start with—Chris didn’t even recognize the brand—but this piano was special. This piano had been tucked away in a place where nobody thought of it, and more importantly, nobody could
hear
it.

He sat down on the creaking bench and put his hands on the keys. He was almost afraid to play anything, not because he would be heard, but because he wouldn’t be. He could play
anything
he wanted. He could play it
however
he wanted. The sense of freedom sent a chill down his spine.

“Wow.”

It was in that basement, cutting a class for the first time in his life, that Chris re-discovered his love of music. He played his secret piano every chance he got. He bought his own tuning tools and gradually and lovingly restored the piano to working order. He had to fix several broken keys and replace the felt pads with materials he ‘borrowed’ from art class, but soon the piano sung like it had never sung before. He improvised, he composed new melodies, adding jazz chords to Mozart and Brahms. He turned a Chopin melody into the basis of a 50’s rock and roll tune. It was too hot in the room, it was noisy and dusty and he lived in fear of being caught by the janitor looking for a broom, but this tiny room and its ancient piano became Chris’ sanctuary, and in this secret place, he was happy.

***

The next morning Sarah wakes slowly. She’s curled up in bed under a pile of blankets listening to the beautiful music coming from the piano upstairs. Ever since they started dating, Sarah has enjoyed waking up to Chris playing. There was something soothing about starting her day to the mathematical precision of his music. Chris tried to explain that classical music follows intricate rules of keys, chord progressions and voice-leading. The melodies and counter-melodies dance together in beautiful and creative ways, but always within the delicate but rigid structure of western tonality. Leading tones resolve, harmonies flow in parallel thirds and sixths, but never parallel fourths or fifths. The dominant chord always leads back to the tonic, unless it deceptively continues the progression with a minor six chord.

 Sarah listened intently, but still doesn’t actually understand any of these rules. She doesn’t care, she can instinctually feel the math being worked out in the interconnected landscape of melody and harmony. She has always been soothed by structures coming together in artistic ways. That’s why she was drawn to architecture. In her half-conscious mind she’s imagining complex but perfectly symmetrical shapes being formed by the music. That is until her eyes fly open in panic.

“Chris! Shit! Stop!” She jumps out of her bed and calls out to Chris.

Chris sits at the piano working his way through a Schubert sonata. “What? Why?”

“The noise!”

Sarah races into the kitchen and begins to climb the rope ladder up to the library.

“Huh?”

“They’ll hear us!”

Chris’ heart sinks. Feeling incredibly stupid, he flushes with embarrassment.
“
Fuck. I wasn’t thinking.”

Sarah does not respond. The gravity of the situation hits her before it dawns on him. Now that he has stopped playing, she slows down. She walks towards him gently.

“Oh damn.” Chris speaks almost inaudibly. He stares down at his hands and slowly flexes his fingers. These are the fingers that have been his conduit to his passion, his identity. An identity that didn’t come from the fingerprints at the tips of those fingers, but what they could create on piano keys.

He is battered by a crushing wave of sadness. He has devoted his life to music, to the piano, and he always had the nagging sense that there was something unfinished, that he was still waiting to emerge as the musician he could be. Even after the world crumbled around him, he felt the need to keep working, the desire to conquer his limitations and meet his potential. He can still feel the tiniest reverberations of the strings through his foot which remains on the sustain pedal. Slowly, as if reluctant to let go of someone he may never see again, he takes his hands off the keys and his foot off the pedal. Felt pads go down over the strings ceasing their vibration. He knows that he may never be able to make those strings vibrate again. The sound of the piano could draw them. They could be overrun and killed. It is no longer safe to play music.

He surveys the long glossy black body of the Steinway grand. For the first time, he notices that it looks a lot like a coffin. They both have hinged lids at the top of a long highly polished wood surface. Inside sits something that used to be alive and something he used to love.

Chris takes a deep breath in and then out.

“Chris?”

He does not respond. He continues to stare at the keyboard.

“Maybe someday we could get an electronic piano you can use with headphones? When we have power? Maybe in the summer?”

Chris slowly and silently closes the lid over the keyboard and walks out of the room.

A half hour passes before he returns. Sarah does not ask him where he has been or what he is feeling. Years of marriage taught her that he will want to talk about it, but now is not the time.  

Chris looks at her with clear eyes. “Let’s go check on our friends out there. We need to find that fuel.”

*

The next day brings an oppressively steady rain. It doesn’t ever come down hard, but the misty precipitation is persistent. The amount of rain doesn’t matter to Chris and Sarah. A mist or a downpour will kill you just as easily. They are left having to deal with a curiously conflicting mixture of feelings. They feel a great pressure and anxiety about their dangerous trip to find fuel. They must do it. They must do it before the snow comes. But, they are trapped by the rain. They are trapped with nowhere to go and nothing much to do. So they sit in a state of anxious boredom. Chris imagines soldiers on the eve of battle must have felt something like this sensation. Whether it was primitive clans planning an attack on the neighboring village or GIs waiting to storm the beaches of Normandy, he envisions them spending sleepless nights in their tents or on their ships, nervously twiddling their thumbs knowing that by this time the next evening, some or all of them will likely be dead.

*

“So, how’s it looking out there?” Sarah looks up from the raincoat she is mending with duct tape to see Chris climbing down the ladder from the office. The rain stopped in the night and although thick grey clouds still loomed overhead, Chris felt safe enough to check on the crowd of Fred and Gingers.

“Looks promising. There’s only about ten of them down there that I could count. I think we can probably give it a try tomorrow. Weather permitting of course.”